


From The Flames

by Marblez



Category: Castle
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Language, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 01:41:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7555204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marblez/pseuds/Marblez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written as part of the 'Little Black Dress Challenge' (July 2016) hosted by Rough Trade. </p><p>Kevin Ryan was not a Guide. He was married to the woman of his dreams. They were about to welcome their first child into the world. And yet, thanks to circumstances out of his control, that was exactly what he was...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Title:** From The Flames

 **Author:** Marblez

 **Fandom/Genre:** Castle

 **Relationship(s):** Kevin Ryan/Javier Esposito

 **Content Rating:** R

 **Warnings:** Canon-Typical Violence, Language

 **Summary:** Kevin Ryan was not a Guide. He was married to the woman of his dreams. They were about to welcome their first child into the world. And yet, thanks to circumstances out of his control, that was exactly what he was...

 **A/N:** I have never written a Sentinel/Guide story before (hence why I decided to do this challenge in the first place, that and I needed to work on my short story writing skills) and have never seen an episode of the original television series. As such I have probably got some basic facts wrongs regarding the genre but please forgive me. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing this fusion story and am looking forward to completing this challenge.

 **WORD COUNT:** 5,286

**~ FROM THE FLAMES ~  
~ PART ONE ~ **

_“…this isn't the arsonist's next target…”_

_No…_

_No, it wasn’t…_

_It was…_

_“…it's his workshop…”_

_“…we must've set off an alarm…”_

_00:06_

_“…it's not an alarm…”_

_00:05_

_“…get out…”_

_00:04_

_“…get out now…”_

_00:03_

_00:02_

_00:01_

_00:00_

_A blinding light…_

_Flying through the air…_

_Pain…_

_His body colliding with a wall…_

_More pain…_

_Falling…_

_Falling into nothing…_

~ * ~

Before coming online as a Sentinel he had been trapped in a downwards spiral, building up a considerable juvenile records for various misdemeanours as he acted out in response to his parents less than amicable divorce. Or that’s what he told anyone who asked why he behaved the way he did, why he didn’t care that he would more than likely end up in prison.

Detective Rayner, one of the police officers who regularly dealt with his cases, had informed him that there was a bet on what he’d eventually get put away for. Apparently most of them thought that he’d go down for a burglary although Rayner had put his money on assault with a deadly weapon, something Javier had never done but probably would have eventually been capable of had he not managed to turn his life around when he had.

He hadn’t intended to change his ways but then one morning shortly after his sixteenth birthday he’d woken up feeling…strange. At first he’d shrugged it off but as the days progressed and his symptoms got worse instead of better he finally agreed to see a doctor.

Finding out that he was coming online was something of a shock as there hadn’t been a recorded Sentinel or Guide in his mother’s family for generations. His father, absent as he was and happy with his new family in Florida, had refused to comment when he’d called.

He’d been given more pamphlets by the doctor than he could have read in a lifetime and was referred to the nearest Sentinel & Guide Centre who were eventually the ones to help him when he finally tipped over the edge and came online. It had been the worst experience of his life, finding himself able to hear almost everything around him to the point where the music the teenage daughter of the family two floors up from them began driving him insane and he hated to do it but he had to ask his mum to stop using so many spices in her cooking.

The worst thing, however, had been adjusting to how everything smelt post coming online.

Through his sessions at the S&G Centre he’d learned that it was pretty common for one sense to become stronger than the others with most Sentinels finding that it was their eyesight that was the strongest. Javier fell into the slightly smaller group who found that it was their sense of smell which was the strongest which led to a few unfortunate nicknames during his time in the US Army. ‘ _Bloodhound’_ had been the most common one with ‘ _Sniffer_ ’ coming in a close second despite the fact that his Spirit Guide had taken the form of a tiger.

It had come in very handy when he’d realised he could scent out explosives.

It hadn’t come in handy when he was struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

And it certainly wasn’t coming in handy now that they were trapped inside a burning building, the building groaning around them, shaking as walls and floors collapsed. It felt like his nose was burning alongside the wreckage around him as the chemicals tore through his senses, his lungs protesting the smoke in the air causing him to cough uncontrollably.

He was pinned to the ground by a scorched piece of wood across his back but it didn’t take much to dislodge it, pushing himself up off of the ground as he set about shutting off his advanced senses. There was no way he could figure out a way to survive this mess if he was struggling to focus on anything but the materials burning around them, most of them highly combustible. A quick glance up at the large hole in what was now the ceiling but had once been the floor beneath their feet confirmed that it truly was a blazing inferno up there.

Slightly more worrying were the large chunks of stone tipping precariously over the edge.

It wouldn’t take much to send the crashing down on top of them.

Wait…

Them…

“Ryan?!”

Snapping his gaze away from the flames he scanned the room around him for any sign of his partner, finding no obvious signs of the younger man amidst the horrific amount of debris.

“Ryan?!”

A pathetically weak cough was enough to clue him in to his friends general location just as the entire building seemed to shake around him sending small pieces of concrete falling down only a couple of metres away from him, one landing almost on top of a pair of feet…

“Kevin!”

Another even more pathetically weak cough was the only answer he received, the feet twitching underneath the concrete pillar which was pinning his friend’s legs to the ground.

“Kevin, is that you?”

A shaking hand appeared over the top of the pillar, reaching out towards him and he didn’t need his advanced sight to see the blood intermingled with the dirt covering Kevin’s skin.

The sight of his friend’s blood turned his own to ice…

Stumbling around the pillar rather than risk climbing over it he found Kev lying underneath even more rubble, thankfully lighter pieces that he was able to remove without and trouble.

“You all right?”

Kevin cried out in pain as he tried to sit up, thudding back down onto the ground.

“I can't move,” he gasped, coughing almost violently in an attempt to dislodge the dust coating the inside of his throat. His bloodshot eyes were wide with fear. “My legs are stuck.”

Moving to the end of the concrete pillar he grabbed hold of it and put everything he had behind trying to lift it off of his friend. It took only a couple of moments for his muscles to begin to protest his actions, screaming at him to stop, but he pressed on until his back gave a warning throb that he was about to cause damage of a possibly permanent nature.

“It's too heavy…”

Kevin groaned in pain as he released his hold on the pillar, causing it to shift on top of him.

He looked awful.

“It's an oven in here…” he gasped weakly, his hands shaking as he tried to remove what remained of his jacket. “And…so loud…this must be hell for you…you should get out…”

“I’ve turned down my senses,” Javier countered instantly, already searching the debris around them for anything that would help him to free Kevin. “I’m not leaving you here.”

Kevin whimpered, bringing his shaking hands up to cover his ears.

“I wish I could turn mine down…”

A piece of burning rubble dropped through the hole in the ceiling above them, exploding into dozens of smaller pieces with a loud crack and a shower of sparks. Hands pressing even tighter over his ears Kevin let out another whimper, turning his face away from the flames.

Javier frowned.

With his senses turned down to the level of a mundane the noise wasn’t overwhelming so it shouldn’t have been effecting Kevin the way it was, nor should the brightness of the flames.

Something was wrong…

“Last thing I remember is the floor giving way,” Kevin gasped out as he tentatively glanced back up towards the inferno above them, visibly wincing. “How far do you think we fell?”

Finally coming across a piece of wood that hadn’t been touched by the fire yet he glanced around at the room they found themselves in taking in the height of the walls as he returned to the pillar and set about find a good leverage point to insert the piece of wood.

“At least two floors…”

Kevin let out a sharp cry as he began pushing down on the piece of wood in order to shift the large column of concrete, finally uncovering his ears in favour of clutching at the floor.

“He must've rigged this place…”

Javier nodded, gritting his teeth as he adjusted his placement of the piece of wood.

“Probably to destroy any evidence in case it was found…” he muttered as he applied some pressure in this new spot, finding the leverage much more agreeable than it was before.

“Yeah,” Kevin coughed weakly, reaching down to clutch at his left leg. “Including us.”

“Not if I can help it,” he countered firmly, locking his gaze with Kevin. “You ready?”

“Yeah…”

Kevin didn’t sound like he was ready but still he moved, preparing himself to move.

“All right,” Javier sighed deeply, squaring his shoulders. “Here we go.”

It had been a long time since his strength had failed him, since he hadn’t been able to do what needed to be done and yet no matter what angle he place the length of wood at, no matter if he pushed or pulled, lifted or nudged, nothing seemed to work. If anything it only seemed to be making it worse, Kevin crying out in pain as the pillar slipped downwards.

Even after turning his senses down the scent of blood grew stronger.

“That ceiling's going to give way at any minute,” Kevin pointed out between attempts to shift the concrete trapping him in place, one hand moving to cover his eyes as sweat continued to pour off of him. He coughed sharply. “You need to get out of here, okay?”

“Shut up,” he snapped, his voice more haggard than he would have liked as he abandoned the piece of wood in favour of searching for something better. “I'm trying to save your life.”

~ * ~

Kevin Ryan wanted nothing more than to wake up at home with his wife snuggled into his arms, her back to his chest and a little pillow supporting her enormous (not that he’d use that word anywhere that she could overhear him) baby bump, to realise that this was all some nightmare brought on by eating cheese before bed. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Just last week he’d had an absolutely terrifying and slight traumatising dream about their baby exploding out of Jenny’s stomach like that alien had in…well…the movie _Alien_. And the week before he’d dreamed that he was trapped inside ‘ _Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory_ ’ although that hadn’t been cheese that time, that particular dream was a result of whiskey.

And yet no matter how many times he was forced to close his eyes in order to combat the pain being caused by the smoke and the impossibly bright flames flickering around him he was still there when he reopened them, trapped by a slab of concrete beneath an inferno with his best friend doing everything and anything he could to get him free. To save him.

A somewhat dark laugh punched out of his lungs before transforming into another cough.

Judging by the pain his left leg was broken, a compound fracture if the scent of blood was anything to go by…and why could he suddenly smell so well? Surely the smoke should be masking everything else but all he could focus on was the overpowering metallic scent...

Javier either ignored him or had turned down his hearing so much that he couldn’t hear him over the noise being caused by the flames and the building shifting above them as pockets of combustible fuels or oxygen exploded, focusing instead on dragging an iron girder across to use as an extra point of leverage. It was obviously hard work, the thing too heavy for one man to move alone even if the man in question was a Sentinel, but he refused to give up.

“Here we go…”

Once it was in place his friend set about swapping the length of wood he had previously been using for a much narrower length of pipe which he set about inserting under the column, jamming the blunt end as deep as it would go whilst angling it to include the girder.

“There…” Javier muttered once it was in place, preparing himself. “Hold on.”

Holding back the humorous response his brain immediately supplied he merely grunted his acknowledgement instead, pushing himself up onto his hands again as he prepared himself both mentally and physically to drag his legs out from under the concrete if Javi succeeded.

“Ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be…”

Javier let out an animalistic scream which was 30% rage, 30% determination and 40% pain as he put everything he had behind shifting the heavy piece of concrete off of Kevin’s legs.

“Go!” he barked out sharply, sweat pouring down his face. “Go, go, go, go, go, go!”

Kevin didn't need to be told twice.

Using his elbows as anchors he literally dragged his body backwards, trying not to use his hips too much to walk his lower body back across the ground as every single movement sent shards of pain rushing from his left leg to his brain. Tears poured down his cheeks as forced himself to keep moving until finally his feet were clear of the column and Javier could let go.

“I'm okay!” he gasped out, blatantly lying as his shaking hands moved down to clutch at his Lowe leg above and below the break. Definitely a compound fracture, judging by the shred of white bone poking out of the bloody mess that was once his skin. “I’m…I'm okay!”

“Don't you fucking lie to me, Kev,” Javier snapped, his voice painfully hoarse, as he vaulted over the pillar of concrete in order to crouch beside his friend. “Not when I can smell your blood even without my senses turned up. Now shit up and let me take a look at your leg.”

“We should…” he broke of with a hiss as his friend’s hands joined his in holding onto his leg around the wound. “We should move out of…out of the way of that first, don't you think?”

Javier's gaze followed the path indicated by Kevin’s, finding the large piece of concrete tipping down towards them at the edge of the hole in the ceiling. It had definitely moved…

“Fine,” Javier conceded somewhat sharply. “Do you think...can you walk?”

“I don't know,” Kevin responded honestly, his head swimming with just the thought of moving the throbbing mass of pain which had previously been his leg. “Give me a hand.”

He'd only taken one step with Javier's arm wrapped around his waist when he let out a pathetically weak gasp, pain overwhelming him as the bright world around him faded away.

~ * ~

Shit…

Ignoring the pain in his back and arms Javier scooped his unconscious friend up into a bridal hold and moved them across to the other side of the room where the ceiling still looked reasonably secure. Kicking a piece of burning wood out of the way he carefully laid his friend down on the ground, his back trembling from the strain of moving so slowly, and then moved so that he was knelt beside the injured limb so that he could access the broken limb.

“Shit…” he muttered to himself as he took in the sight before him, noting the protrusion of splintered bone, the steady trickle of blood across the swollen limb and the odd angle the lower part of his friends shin lay at, his foot falling the wrong way to how it should. “Shit!”

What he wouldn't give for a fully stocked first aid kit right now…

Stripping off his ruined jacket and shirt he was relieved to discover that his white undershirt was still mostly clean and, bring very careful about how he handled it given that he had no way of washing the blood and dirt from his hands, pulled it off and carefully arranged it over the open fracture point as though it were a sterile dressing pad. His ruined shirt was then quickly torn into long strips which he used as bandages, securing the undershirt in place so as to hopefully control the worst of the bleeding as well as stabilising the broken bones.

Checking his friend for any other injuries he found only minor ones which weren’t an immediate threat so he could focus on the broken leg and the fact that they were trapped.

But first…

“Kev!” he called out, slapping his friends face with enough force to wake him up but not enough to hurt him. He wouldn’t want to cause him any more pain. “Come on! Wake up!”

It ended up taking half-a-dozen gentle blows to the face to bring him round with a startled gasp, his eyes flying open as his arms flailed uncontrollably. Javier sprung forwards, grabbing hold of Kevin’s shoulders in order to keep him still as he used his leg to pin Kevin’s down.

“Kev!”

“J-Javi?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” he murmured reassuringly, holding himself still whilst being ever so careful to keep his weight on Kevin’s thighs and shoulders. He didn’t want to hurt him further. “Kev, I need you to hold still, ok? You’ve really done a number on your leg. No, no, don’t look. Just trust me. I’ve done what I can for the moment but we need to get you out of here ASAP.”

For a long moment Kevin just stared up at him, his gaze heavy with pain and confusion, but eventually he nodded ever so slightly and relaxed back against the ground. A trembling hand came up to wipe the layer of sweat and dirt from his face as Javier moved to sit beside him.

“...where are we?”

Glancing around at their surroundings properly for the first time since coming around Javier frowned, confused by the oddly square shape of the room and lack of obvious features. There was literally nothing to clue him into what the room has been used for or if there was it was hidden underneath the layer of rubble, forcing him to give a rather vague answer,

“Looks like some kind of sub-basement.”

Given that the arsonist’s lab had been located in the basement of the building, the rest of which had been completely empty when they'd checked it, supported his rough assessment.

“I don't see any doors.”

Kevin hummed softly, acknowledging this unhelpful piece of information before frowning and pointing up towards the ceiling in the corner of the room now closest to where they sat.

“Look.”

Javier did look, getting to his feet and physically moving to investigate as he realised that what his friends had spotted was an old-fashioned goods lift. The lift itself was missing and the lack of wreckage told them it had been removed long before the explosion, as were the cables or ropes which would have hauled it up and down, but the shaft up to the next floor was definitely still there. It hadn't been completely blocked off, just covered in metal bars.

He was just about to start figuring out how they could get themselves up there with the supplies available to them when he caught sight of a flame curling around the edge of the shaft, growing rapidly large until the bars were thick black lines across the yellow flames.

Damn…

“Looks like that was our way out...”

“Yeah, I don't think we wanted to go up anyway...” Kevin muttered, pulling at his tie to loosen the knot which had survived the fall intact. “I don't…I don't feel so good, Javi…”

Automatically his eyes fell to his friend’s leg, finding the bandages beginning to turn red with his blood but not alarmingly so. His first aid training kicking in Javier began checking his friend over for signs of the next biggest danger following his actual injury – shock.

Kevin wasn't pale, in fact his cheeks were flushed, but his skin was clammy to the touch.

His breathing, whilst a little unsteady, wasn't worryingly fast or shallow and his pulse, when he check both his wrist and his neck, was a little bit fast but not alarmingly so and strong.

So…not shock…at least not yet, anyway…

Reaching into his back pocket he was relieved to find his phone still safely tucked inside but as soon as he pulled it out he cursed himself for not putting it safely in his jacket pocket.

“My phone's busted from the fall,” he muttered as he tried the power button on the top despite the spiderweb of cracks covering the screen. Nothing. “How about you?”

“Uh…” Kev mumbled, coughing once, his hands shaking as he retrieved his own phone from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. It wasn't visibly damaged and definitely still had power but when he pressed the power button and the screen lit up the ‘ _No Signal_ ’ sign was easy to spot and, given their current location, not altogether unsurprising. “Yeah, I got nothing...”

“All right,” Javier muttered, grimacing as he looked up towards the growing inferno. “Well, as big as this thing is, fire departments got to be out there. They’ve got to be on scene.”

They had to stay positive, he knew, because the moment they gave up they were dead.

“Yeah...” Kevin sighed weakly. “We should...should let them know that we're down here...”

Offering his friend a sound of agreement Javier pulled himself back to his feet and stumbled into the centre of the room, climbing over the top of rubble when he had to, until he could cup his hands around his mouth in a childish attempt to amplify the sound of his voice.

“Yo!” he called out the first thing that popped into his head. “Anyone there?! Down here!”

“Is there – ” Kevin began only to break off into a hacking cough as the dust overwhelmed him. After clearing his throat he tried again. “Is there anybody up there? We're down here!”

“Hey!” Javier tried again, shouting so loudly his throat stung. “Down here!”

Nothing.

“Fire's too loud…” his injured friend whimpered, voicing the thoughts flying through his own head as Javier tore his gaze away from what remained of the ceiling. “They can't hear us…”

They couldn’t hear them…

 _Don’t panic, Javi,_ he told himself firmly, his hands gripping the back of his neck as he searched the room for anything they could use. _Think. There must be something you can…_

A rumble of a different kind drew his attention back towards Kevin, his eyes going wide when he caught sight of his spirit animal stretched out alongside his friend, tail flicking from side to side as he rested his head on his deadly paws. Djaq, as he preferred to be known, had appeared to him as a tiny little tiger cub when he’d come online and had proceeded to grow alongside him, transforming into the terrifying creature stretched out before him.

Javier had been convinced he had the wrong spirit guide for almost two years after hearing that tigers were supposed to represent strength and willpower, neither of which he had had much growing up, but once they were in the military he had come into his own, discovered where his strength had been hidden all this time and confirming that yes, he had willpower.

“Javi…” Kevin mumbled, his eyes fixed on the tiger beside him. It wasn’t the first time that Djaq had shown himself to other people but until now they had all been Sentinels or Guides. His friend must be a sensitive mundane if he could see the animal. “Why is there a…?”

_“You have need of me, Sentinel?”_

“Djaq, have I ever told you that you have absolutely fabulous timing?” he chuckled, hurrying across to drop to his knees in front of the powerful animal who did indeed have a habit of appearing just in time. “We’re trapped. We’ve tried calling out but it’s no use, the flames are just too loud. I need you to find Beckett or Castle, tell them we’re still alive down here but that we need help. Tell them that Kev’s broken his leg, that he won’t be able to walk.”

_“I shall do as you ask, Sentinel.”_

Rising gracefully to his feet the tiger stretched, shook his massive head and then leapt towards the nearest wall, passing through it as though there was nothing in his way.

“Would be handy if he could take us with him,” Kevin mumbled, staring at the spot on the wall where the tiger had just vanished through. “So…that was your spirit guide?”

“Yeah,” Javier confirmed. “I’m…I’m surprised you could see him, to be honest.”

“You’re not the only one,” his friend coughed. “What I wouldn’t give for some water…”

“Djaq will get the message through,” he reassured his friend, running his fingers through his hair, pulling out a piece of rubble. “Beckett and Castle will be on the scene by now and you know they won’t stop until they’ve got us out. Then you can have all the water you want.”

The fact that Castle, a latent Guide, had come online in response to one of the numerous life and death situations he and Beckett, an unbonded Sentinel, had found themselves in was still the talk of the station even now. He’d come online slowly, gently, as all Guide’s hoped they would and the couple had finally been forced to confront their feelings for each other.

They’d bonded quickly, following their natural instincts, and would soon be getting married.

“I hope so…” Kevin sighed, absently rubbing a hand across his chest before covering his eyes with his hand. “I don’t…I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Javi…everything’s so…vivid…”

Javier wished there was something more that he could do to help his friend.

“I’m going to keep trying to make contact the old fashioned way,” he announced, his skin itching with the need to do something. He picked up a piece of pipe. “I’ve got an idea.”

He couldn’t stop.

If he stopped he would have too much time to think and if he had too much time to think he’d begin to struggled with controlling his senses and he’d be vulnerable to a zone out.

This was _not_ the time to get trapped in a zone out.

It had taken one of the unbonded Guide’s at the station nearly an hour to pull him back the last time he’d found himself lost inside his mind, captivated by the scent of Castle’s coffee.

Without a Guide there to help him a zone out in their current circumstances could be fatal.

Taking yet another look around the room he gently patted Kevin on the shoulder before hurrying across to what remained of the buildings water pipes, covered in a thick layer of rust and, after giving it an experimental strike with the pipe in his hand, empty of water.

“Maybe the sound will carry up,” he explained his reasoning, striking the long pipe for a second time creating a loud bang. “It might help them figure out where we are down here.”

~ * ~

“Oh, fu – ”

Kevin cut himself off with a whimper as he pressed his hands over his ears once more, squeezing his eyes shut in response to the pain reverberating around inside his skull following the noise his friend was making. It felt as though someone had taken an ice pick, jabbed it through his eye and deep into his brain and then wiggled it around for a bit before yanking it back out again, only to repeat the move on his other eye. Put bluntly it was agony.

“Down here! Hey!” Javier called out, unaware of the pain he was putting Kevin through as he continued to bang one piece of pipe against the other. “Hey! Hey! Down here, anybody!”

“Javi…”

It seemed impossible to him but the longer the noise went on the clearer it became in his mind, as though he was able to follow the echoes of the initial impact up through the pipe.

“Hey! Come on! Hey!”

“Please…”

Between the ringing sounds of metal striking metal he heard the sound of concrete shifting and automatically looked up, opening his eyes wide as he stared at the crack forming in the ceiling above him. Following the worrying crack towards the hole they’d fallen through an entirely new level of pain began tormenting him as it felt as though the flames tormenting his vision were actually burning away his eyeballs, tears flooding freely down his cheeks.

“Hey! Down here! Hey!” Javier screamed, increasing the force of his blows. “Hey! Hey!”

Kevin let out a desperate cry,

_“Stop!”_

Silence, or as close to silence as they could get given their current surroundings, followed his broken call and if he could have he would have curled up into a ball, burying his head under his arms. As it was the pain from his leg was too great and all he could down was lie there, hands fluttering back and forth between his eyes and his ears as his tears continued to fall.

Javier gasped, his own voice breaking as he called out Kevin's name fearful whilst hurrying back across to the injured man’s side, carelessly abandoning the piece of pipe on the way.

Even the high pitched clang it made as it struck the floor was enough to make him cry out.

“What wrong?” Javier demanded, dropping to his knees with enough for that it had to have hurt him. One of his hands moved to replace Kevin's where it lay across his eyes allowing Kev to focus on covering his ears, the fact that he was still wearing his gloves made out of a tough black fabric helping to block out all of the unwelcome visual triggers. “What is it?”

“It's too much…” he finally whimpered, his teeth aching inexplicably. “It's _too_ much…”

“What is?” Javier demanded. “What's too much?”

“ _Everything_!”

~ * ~

Taken aback by the sheer amount of pain in his friends voice, pain which he was pretty sure had absolutely nothing to do with the state of his leg, it took Javier a second too long to react. His hands shifted, covering Kevin’s own, as he shifted his body until he was leant almost completely over his friend, their faces ending up only a couple of inches apart.

“Kev!” he called out softly, grimacing as his friend winced and squeezed his eyes shut even more than they had previously been. “Look at me. Kev, open your eyes and _look at me_.”

Kevin gasped, his eyes flying open.

His pupils were so huge only the thinnest strip of blue was visible around the edge.

“Kev, what do you mean by _everything is too much_?”

“Javi…” his friend gasped sharply, digging his nails into his temples as he let out a strangled whimper. “I can hear _everything…_ the fire’s so loud…and you’re voice is…and there’s a piece of concrete…it’s moving closer to the edge and I can hear it scraping along the floor…”

It felt as though the bottom had dropped out of his stomach.

“And the flames are so bright, Javi, so _bright_ …” Kevin all but sobbed, tears pouring down his cheeks in a constant stream. “It feels like my eyes are burning and I… _I don’t know why_ …”

Kevin would have told him if he was latent, wouldn’t he? Because what his friend had just described sounded like someone coming online under the worst possible circumstances.

Biting down on his lower lip to give him something else to focus on if need be he opened his senses up and focused them all towards his friend, finding exactly what he feared he would.

“Shit, Kev, I think you're coming online…”

**~ END OF PART ONE ~**


	2. Part Two

**Title:** From The Flames

 **Author:** Marblez

 **Fandom/Genre:** Castle

 **Relationship(s):** Kevin Ryan/Javier Esposito

 **Content Rating:** R

 **Warnings:** Canon-Typical Violence, Language, Minor Dubious Consent _(Nightmare)_

 **Summary:** Kevin Ryan was not a Guide. He was married to the woman of his dreams. They were about to welcome their first child into the world. And yet, thanks to circumstances out of his control, that was exactly what he was...

 **A/N:** I have never written a Sentinel/Guide story before (hence why I decided to do this challenge in the first place, that and I needed to work on my short story writing skills) and have never seen an episode of the original television series. As such I have probably got some basic facts wrongs regarding the genre but please forgive me. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing this fusion story and am looking forward to completing this challenge.

 **WORD COUNT:** 5,286 _(Part One)_ 6,747 _(Part Two)_ 12,033 _(Total)_

**~ FROM THE FLAMES ~ ~ PART TWO ~**

_It felt as though his skin was melting off of his bones, the heat of the flames becoming overwhelming as they grew ever closer to where he was trapped underneath the rubble._

_“Look at me...”_

_How was it possible that his friend’s voice could sound so far away and yet so close at the same time? It echoed around the room and yet it touched upon his senses like a whisper._

_“Kev, open your eyes and look at me…”_

_Strange…_

_He could have sworn he had been freed from the rubble…_

_“Kev, what do you mean by_ everything is too much _?”_

**_No…_ **

**_This wasn’t right…_ **

_His own voice caught him by surprise…_

_“Javi…I can hear everything…the fire’s so loud…and you’re voice is…and there’s a piece of concrete…it’s moving closer to the edge and I can hear it scraping along the floor…”_

_His friends face, hovering directly above his own, lost most of its colour…_

_“…and the flames are so bright, Javi, so bright…”_

**_He shouldn’t be here…_ **

**_This…_ **

**_This wasn’t right…_ **

_“…it feels like my eyes are burning and I…I don’t know why…”_

_Somewhere in the distance a child let out a strangled whimper, too terrified to form words. He didn't know how he knew for certain that the child was his, he just did, something deep in his very soul screaming at him that his child was in danger, that his child needed him. Now._

_“Shit, Kev, I think you're coming online…”_

_Yes…_

_Yes…_

_He'd come online, something completely unprecedented as he'd never once tested as latent during any of his doctor’s appointments whether they were his police physicals or private visits. Yes, they'd always found the genetic markers in his blood but that didn't mean anything, not when they were so few. To be officially classed as ‘Latent’ you needed something close to a 50/50 ratio of the two types of markers not the 25/75 that he had._

_He shouldn't have come online but he had…_

_“You're a Guide…”_

_Yes…_

_“You're **my** Guide…”_

_Yes…_

**_No…_ **

_He was…_

_Javier was his Sentinel…_

_As soon as he'd realised what had been happening his instincts had taken over, focusing his senses on the man hovering above him, all of them telling him that they were well matched._

_Javier **was** his Sentinel…_

_“Guide…”_

_Lips, rough and dry, pressed insistently onto his…_

**_No…_ **

_Hands tugged at what remained of his clothes…_

**_No…_ **

_“Let me feel you…”_

_He was pulled, heedless of his broken and splinted leg, into a seated position leaning against the wall so that his Sentinel could straddle him, hands continuing to strip him of his clothes._

**_Wait…_ **

_Hadn't he been trapped…?_

_“I'm so glad I found you…”_

_Yes…_

_Hands smoothing over the muscular planes of his chest, drifting lower and lower…_

**_No…_ **

**_This wasn't what happened…_ **

_A tongue moving against his own as his lips were captured in an even rougher kiss…_

_“I can feel you, Guide, I can feel us becoming as one…”_

**_No…_ **

**_They hadn't Bonded…_ **

**_They couldn't have…_ **

_A child's angry wail, the kind they let out when they were desperate for someone they loved and trusted to come and hold them, to bounce them or sing yo them, echoed sharply…_

_“Sarah-Grace…”_

**_This wasn't right…_ **

_“Guide…”_

**_They hadn't Bonded…_ **

_“Yes…”_

**_None of this had happened…_ **

_“My Guide…”_

**_This wasn't real…_ **

~ * ~

He awoke with a startled gasp, bolting upright in bed as his hands roamed his own body, finding not the tattered remains of his suit but the cotton pyjamas Jenny had bought him for Christmas the previous year. They were personalised, his initials embroidered on the single pocket, and when he'd received them he'd instantly loved them. Now the fabric irritated his sensitive skin due to the fabric softener she still insisted on using but he didn't want to upset her by either complaining, again, or by refusing to wear them.

He'd put her through enough already.

The demanding cry he'd heard in the midst of his dream sounded again through the baby monitor on his wife's bedside cabinet, prompting her to groan and roll away from the noise.

Jenny had taken to being a mother as well as she'd taken to everything else in her life but she was, understandably, exhausted as he was still recovering from breaking his leg, not to mention still struggling to adjust to being a Guide. He couldn't do much, not in the way of carrying their daughter around or preparing the midnight feeds, as he was still on crutches even though six months had passed since he and Javier had been caught up in the explosion.

He could, however, give her what she sounded like she needed just then.

A cuddle.

Or, more than likely, a nappy change.

Jenny had been adamant that he figure out how to help with those and so he had, investing in a changing table for Sarah-Grace which was sturdy enough for him to lean all of his body weight against. He wasn't as quick at the task as Jenny was but he could get it done without upsetting their daughter or injuring himself unlike when he'd attempted to make her bottle.

Maybe one day he'd manage it but, thanks to the design of their kitchen, he couldn't now.

He could feed her, so long as he was sat down, but someone else had to prepare the bottle.

Swinging his bad leg off of the bed he set about applying the semi-flexible brace to the lower portion of his leg over the top of his pyjama bottoms and then grabbed hold of his crutches, using them as he had been instructed to during his physiotherapy sessions.

They were concerned about the length of time it was taking him to heal.

Unsurprisingly surgery had been required to fix the damage that had been done to his leg and Kevin would forever be setting off metal detectors thanks to the amount of pins and plates holding the bones of his leg in place. Immediately following the surgery his leg had been encased in a cast in order to protect it from further damage, held in an elevated position above his hospital bed, but eventually the rigid and unyielding cast had been replaced with the flexible one he wore now. He'd been allowed home once he'd progressed from relying on a wheelchair to get around to being able to use a pair of crutches.

A good thing to as, hospital bills being what they were, his insurance wouldn't have covered him for much longer due to the shared policy he had agreed to. Jenny had been pregnant at the time so it had made sense to focus most of it her way despite his dangerous job. The plan had been to return to focus of the policy to him once the baby has arrived but given that he'd been injured on the same day his daughter had arrived that hadn't happened.

He’d returned to work a month after the explosion and had been restricted to desk duty ever since, his recovery plateauing unpredictability despite the work of his physiotherapist.

Making his way along the narrow corridor to his daughter’s bedroom he found her lying on her back in the middle of her crib, arms and legs flailing around as she let out an almost constant noise of distress. A quick check proved that she was wet rather than the less pleasant alternative and so he set about changing her as quickly as he physically could.

She was much happier once she was sporting a fresh nappy, content to curl up against her daddy's chest as he reclined back in the comfortable rocking chair Jenny's mother had given them. It had been in her family for generations, apparently, and Sarah-Grace certainly loved the gentle motions it helped him to achieve whilst keeping his bad leg up off of the floor.

It was difficult for him to think about how close he came to never seeing his daughter.

Contrary to what his subconscious apparently believed, if the latest in a long line of twisted dreams about the explosion was anything to go by, he and Javier had not Bonded that day.

Yes, he'd come online as a response to the fact that his Sentinel was trapped alongside him in the dangerous situation but just because they were biologically suited for one another didn't mean they had to be together, that they should be together. Plenty of Sentinels and Guides functioned perfectly well without Bonding, their relationships platonic, and the two of them had agreed that they couldn't in good conscience hurt Lanie and Jenny by entering into a full Bond together. Neither of them deserved to be put through that, especially not Jenny who had stood by him through everything and had been about to have their baby.

He refused to be one of those assholes who walked out on their families because of a Bond.

Djaq had managed to get their message through to Beckett and Castle, alerting the various rescue workers on sight to the fact that they had survived the initial explosion and had returned to them alongside her own Spirit Guide, a majestic deer, who had informed them that there was no sign of a sub-basement on the building official blueprints. The theory at the time had been that the arsonist had somehow managed to doctor the official plans so as to hide his planned escape route should he have to trigger the bomb whilst trapped inside.

There had been no clues they could give them about where the sub-basement was located in relation to the rest of the building and so there had been nothing for them to do but wait, the Spirit Guides continuing to pass updates between all of them. Kevin hadn't realised it at the time but his own Spirit Guide had been present towards the end, the tiny little ball of fluff appearing beside him just as they carbon monoxide had really started to affect them.

~ * ~

_It didn't make sense to him, his sluggish brain not processing the fact that the logical solution for why there was a tiny dog rubbing its head against his hand was because the creature was his Spirit Guide. He didn't recognise the breed but it looked ridiculously cute._

_He just thought it was a rather vivid hallucination._

_“We're both getting sleepy...”_

_Kevin grunted in agreement of his friend’s statement. For a long time Javier had been searching the room for…anything…but even he'd been forced to give up, slumping down beside the injured detective. Their shoulders were pressed together as they leaned against the semi-stable wall, Javier's leg ending up curled slightly up and over Kevin's good leg._

_“Carbon monoxide's building up.”_

_He hadn't meant to sound so defeated._

_“Ryan, you listen to me. You need to hang on, okay?” Javier grunted, taking Kevin’s other hand in his own and squeezing it tightly, so tightly it actually hurt. If he saw the dog on Kevin's other side he didn't say anything about it. “They're coming for you.”_

_“I appreciate the pep talk,” Kevin heard himself murmur in response, letting Javier hold onto his hand while the imaginary dog licked at the fingers of his other hand. “But we both know the fires too hot and you heard what Beckett said. They don't know where to look.”_

_It was beginning to look completely hopeless…_

~ * ~

As though summoned by the memory of their less than perfect first meeting his Spirit Guide appeared before him, vibrant blue eyes staring up at him from her ridiculously cute face as she settled her body across his feet. Her name, as she had informed him, was Sapphire.

It had taken him all of an hour and a decent internet connection to confirm that she was a cross between a Cocker Spaniel and a Poodle, a breed that was commonly known as a Cockapoo. Her blue eyes were unusual, definitely a quirk of her status as a Spirit Guide, although otherwise she was pretty average for the breed which meant that she had curly white fur, stood at a height of fourteen inches and weighed a grand total of twenty pounds.

Castle had laughed for almost an hour after finding out that his Spirit Guide was a Cockapoo.

He dreaded how the writer would use this information whilst writing his next novel…

_“What disturbed your sleep tonight? The child or your dreams?”_

“A bit of both, I think,” Kevin sighed, patting his lap in the universal signal to give permission for the ethereal creature which had chosen to appear as a dog to jump up, wiggling around until it settled down. His hold on his daughters limp body, sleep having claimed her once more, never faltered even when a paw pressed dangerously close to his groin. “Watch it…”

 _“Apologies,”_ Sapphire murmured, not sounded the slightest bit apologetic. She never did. He was learning that for all that she was small in stature she had an overly large personality which was neither cute nor fluffy. _“You should speak to your Sentinel about the dreams.”_

“He's not my Sentinel…”

Sapphire scoffed loudly.

 _“Only because you refuse to accept what would be best for you, preferring to sacrifice your health and happiness in favour of the happiness of others,”_ she muttered, digging her claws into his thigh as a demonstration of her displeasure. _“Sometimes I think you are far too honourable for your own good. Denying your Bond won't do either of you any good...”_

Now it was Kevin's turn to scoff although not as loudly for fear of disturbing Sarah-Grace.

“But we didn't Bond…”

_“So you say…”_

“I think I'd remember entering into a Bond, don't you?” he muttered, reluctantly teaching down to pet his Spirit Guide in order to calm her. “All of my memories rolling my emergence focus solely on two things; trying to survive and the fact that my daughter was bring born.”

Finding out the Jenny was on site and in labour had broken his heart.

~ * ~

_“Where are you?” George, a lively monkey who Kevin had heard much about from Castle but until then had never seen, repeated the words his poor wife had uttered to the Spirit Guide only moments previously. Castle had, rather unexpectedly, tasked his Spirit Guide with passing messages between Kevin and his wife, allowing Djaq and Hunter, Beckett’s deer, to remain solely focuses on helping the rescue teams locate them. “The baby's coming.”_

_A lead weight seemed to settle in his stomach, prompting a new wave of tears to fall._

_“Tell her…tell her that I'm inside and that I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry…” he begged the unusually solemn creature, wiping away his tears even as they continued to fall. The pain of his coming online had begun to dull, his senses settling in as the hours passed them by, but it was still the most uncomfortable situation he'd ever been in. “Tell her that…that I know I promised, but I'm not gonna be there and I'm sorry. Tell her she can do this. I know she can.”_

_A piece of rubble fell through the hole in the ceiling, striking the ground with a shower of sparks and a thud so loud that both he and Javier winced. His friend had helped him figure out how to turn his senses down but, due to lack of experience, it wasn't holding very well._

_“Tell her that I love her more than anything,” he continued, close to sobbing as he picture pad her expression upon hearing his words. “Tell her to always remember that…”_

_George nodded once, sharply, before leaping up and vanishing into the nearest wall._

_He only had to wait a couple of minutes for her response to arrive._

_“Jenny says; Don't say that. Please, don't say that as though I'm never going to see you again. You can't leave me, you can't...we haven't named the baby. Remember?”_

_George paused, allowing Kevin a moment to compose himself before continuing with his recitation of the emotional words, obviously more than a little bit affected himself._

_“We were going to choose a name together once the baby was born so you can't say goodbye,” the monkey concluded solemnly, shifting on his feet. “You can't…”_

_“Oh God…” Kevin sobbed, clutching at his chest where his heart ached from within. His friend glanced over worriedly from where he was being briefed by Hunter. Kevin waved off his concern, focusing himself on the important task of comforting his wife. “Tell her that if it's a boy I'd like for him to be called Javier. Name him Javier. And if it's a girl…Sarah-Grace, after her grandmother. And…and I'm so sorry, Jenny. So sorry. I love you so much…”_

_George nodded._

_“Don’t bring any message back down to me…please…” he requested, rubbing at his cheeks even as both Javier and George frowned at him. “Stay with her. Hold her hand for me...”_

_Obviously reluctant the Spirit Guide nodded, looked at both of them for a long moment, and then vanished. He was closely followed by both Hunter and Djaq, the pair returning to the surface with the latest reply from Javier regarding the rescue team’s achingly slow progress._

_“Javier?” his friend, the original Javier, snorted weakly as he slumped down beside him once more. His breathing was worryingly unsteady. “You're gonna name a white Irish kid Javier?”_

_“What?” he chuckled. “You're going to bust on me_ now _for being sentimental?”_

_Javier snorted._

_“I figure it's my last chance…”_

_His friend’s voice trailed off as the Sentinel listed sideways suddenly, his head coming to rest heavily on Kevin's shoulder as his arms dropped down at his sides. His eyes were closed._

_“No! Javi!” Kevin gasped, choking on the smoke in the air as he shook his friends shoulder. “No, no, no, Javi...no, no, no! Don't you dare fall asleep on me! Don't you dare, Javi! Javi?!”_

~ * ~

He must have succumbed to the carbon monoxide shortly after that as the next clear memory he had of that night was waking up in the back of an ambulance, an oxygen mask over his face while people worked on his injured leg. His beautiful wife had smiled through her exhaustion, cradling the most precious thing Kevin had ever seen in her arms as she'd lain on her own stretcher on the other side of the ambulance. He could still hear her voice now, hear how it had shaken from a mixture of understandable exhaustion and emotion;

_“Kevin, I'd like to meet your daughter, Sarah-Grace.”_

They'd sedated him soon after that and the next time he'd come around he'd been in the ICU of the local hospital, his leg in plaster and his various cuts and bruises cared for. Jenny wasn't there although she had been there as much as their newborn baby would allow her to be in the four days following his ordeal that he'd remained blissfully unconscious, or so the nurses had informed him, and had left a photograph of her and Sarah-Grace for him.

Sapphire huffed loudly, shrugging off his hand as he tilted her head to glare at him.

 _“At least tell me you've spoken to Solomon about your dreams?”_ she demanded, naming the Guide that his local Sentinel  & Guide Centre had assigned as his case worker. He hadn't, fearing that the elderly Guide would leap to the same conclusions she had, and his answer must have been obvious from his expression as Sapphire growled deeply. _“You're an idiot…”_

Solomon would probably smack him round the back of his head when he did find out.

He'd been registered as a Guide from his hospital bed and upon his release had been “ _invited_ ” to attend weekly classes at the S&G Centre designed to help people like him adjust to coming online as a Guide relatively late. It wasn't dangerously late in his case, or so he'd been reassured, but it certainly hadn't made things any easier for him. Had this happened to him ten years earlier he'd have found the transition much easier and wouldn't still be attending those same lessons six months later, nor would he still be having weekly meetings with his case worker. Silently he admitted that, had this happened to him ten years ago and had he known Javier at the time, he wouldn't have hesitated to enter into a Bond with him.

Sadly it wasn't ten years earlier…

Sarah-Grace stirred in his arms, her little body wriggling and twisting as she sought out a new comfortable position in her sleep. Judging by the way her eyelids were flickering she was having one heck of a dream and he wondered idly what it was babies dreamed about.

 _“Your daddy's an idiot,”_ Sapphire murmured, pressing her nose to the babies tiny hand, holding still as Sarah-Grace gripped her snout gently before settling down. _“Yes, he is…”_

The fact that his daughter could touch his Spirit Guide reminded him of the fact that, due to his transition, his little girl had been screened for the genetic markers earlier than most newborn babies were and it had been confirmed that Sarah-Grace was a latent Guide.

Jenny had just about managed to hide her disappointment, her annoyance, behind a smile.

Unlike his own family which he had learned since coming online had something of an _“unpredictable track record”_ regarding Sentinels and Guides coming online, sometimes skipping whole generations, other times producing a “ _gaggle_ ” as his Nanna had put it, his wife's family hadn’t produced anything but mundanes for almost two hundred years if the family history was to be believed, long before either of their families had made the journey from Ireland to America. He suspected that half of the reason she had been acting so strangled lately was simply because she hadn't learnt how to handle Sentinels or Guides when she was growing up and was, therefore, playing catch up just as much as he was.

The other reason for her increasingly odd behaviour were the “post baby blues” she had complained about enough times for Beckett to suggest that she see someone about it the last time Jenny had popped into the station to visit him. That had been a couple of months ago, he realised, and she still hadn't gotten around to making a doctor’s appointment.

Silencing a yawn before it could disturb his precious daughter Kevin contemplated going back to bed but, considering his alarm would be going off in just over an hour and the fact that he'd no doubt have yet another strange dream, he decided against it. Sleep wouldn't help anyway. He'd been struggling against a constant feeling of exhaustion for weeks now which Sapphire delighted in telling him was due to his fighting the Bond he hadn't made.

He figured his body was still struggling adapt to the physical changes it had gone through.

And so instead of heading back to bed he chose instead to remain where he was with his daughter in his arms, watching her sleep as he absentmindedly rocked the chair back and forth with his good whilst continuing to have a quiet conversation with his Spirit Guide.

~ * ~

Javier wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.

His senses were all over the place no matter what he did, no matter how much he concentrated or how long he spent meditating in the evenings. Hell, they were still almost completely uncontrollable even after he'd resorted to accepting help from a Guide.

Nothing had helped.

And it wasn't just his senses.

He was exhausted, his sleep plagued by dreams so unsettling that some nights he had to work up the courage just to close his eyes, his subconscious torturing him mercilessly.

The worse thing was he knew exactly what he had to do to fix everything but he couldn't.

He _couldn't_.

Sorting his own life out would mean ruining someone else's, someone who was in no way responsible for the situation they were all currently trapped by. No, that blame was all his.

Trapped as they had been and with the hope of a rescue fading more and more with each passing second when his senses had registered the fact that Kevin was not only coming online as a Guide but was coming on as the perfect Guide to balance his own Sentinel side he had instinctively reached out and allowed his senses to begin imprinting on him.

After all, what harm could it do if they were going to die anyway?

His hearing had already locked itself in on Kevin's rapid heartbeat when his friend had uttered the words which had been replaying in his mind ever since they'd made it out alive.

_“At least this way I won't end up being one of those assholes you hear about who leave their wives and children for some Sentinel, all because of a chance of fate. I'd do anything to stop myself from hurting my family, Javi, even if it means never seeing them again…”_

That had been enough of a wake-up call to stop him from imprinting any further, respecting his Guides wishes even though they were about to die. Only they didn't die. They'd passed out shortly after that and the next thing he knew he was being pulled out of a hole in the floor by a fireman suspended on a rope, an oxygen mask already pressed against his face.

They hadn't died and, after seeing his Guides emotional reunion with his wife and introduction to his newborn daughter he knew he couldn't be the one to force Kevin to go against his word, against his wishes. As much as it pained him to do so he'd kept the fact that he had, in a moment of weakness he now realised, begun a Bond doomed to failure.

He'd hoped that it would fade as he'd heard of some unrequited Bonds doing but it was still going, his hearing still locked on his Guides heartbeat whenever they were near each other.

Logically he knew there were only two option open to him to fix the mess he'd made – either complete the Bond with his Guide or get a Shaman to forcibly break the Bond which would be painful for both of them, not to mention extremely dangerous for him as it was his senses which had imprinted and would therefore be severed. It could drive him insane…

“No more so than this already is,” he muttered to himself as he inhaled his fifth cup of coffee. It wasn't even eleven o'clock yet and already he was exhausted. “What a mess…”

Looking down at the files on his desk, all relating to their current case, he began comparing the information they'd been supplied with when something successfully stole is attention.

An irregular heartbeat.

Not just any heartbeat, though, the one his senses have been locked on to for months.

“Kev…”

He looked up from the files just in time to see his Guides eyes roll back into his head, his body going completely limp and dropping like a stone. Sadly it isn't a smooth journey down, the flexible cast around his leg forcing him to crumple towards the nearest desk to where he had been stood at the board instead of away from it and Javier wasn't the only one to cry out in horror as Kevin's head made contact with the corner of the desk while his crutches ricocheted off of the floor, hitting several of the people who had instinctively stepped forwards to help him, and the _thud_ his skull made against the wood was sickeningly loud.

He was out of his chair before bed even considered moving, an animalistic growl exploding from somewhere deep in his chest as he sprinted across the short distance between them.

As head wounds tend to do there was a shocking amount of blood, both in terms of the amount flowing steadily from the cut as well as the splatter covering the desk and floor. His hand was shaking as he dropped down beside his Guide, physically shoving someone out of his way so that he could be the one to apply pressure to the bleeding gash whilst manoeuvring Kevin's limp body so that his head and shoulders were resting atop his thighs.

Every fibre of his being was screaming at him to protect his Guide, to keep him safe, and so when anyone tried to approach he growled across at them even if, logically, he knew they wanted to help Kevin just as much as he did. Hell, Lanie had the first aid box in her hands.

Wait…

Lanie?

What was she doing here?

“…he's been like that for almost ten minutes…”

No, he hadn't. He'd only just applied pressure to Kev's head wound…

“Has someone contacted the S&G Centre?”

“No…”

“Do it,” Lanie ordered sharply. Out of the corner of his eye he caught her glaring around at the crowd even as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves with practiced ease. “You've got an unconscious Guide and a feral Sentinel. Why the hell _haven’t_ you called them already?”

Footsteps…

“Actually I just got off the phone with them…”

Huh…

Beckett sounds like she's just run a marathon…

“I had to get Castle out of here. He wasn't reacting well to the emotions in the air but I called them while I was walking him out. They've cancelled the ambulance and are sending one of their medical teams,” she reported breathlessly. “What are we going to do about…?”

“This.”

Javier hadn't even noticed the syringe she'd been holding before it sunk into the muscle of his shoulder with a bruising amount of force, causing him to cry out in both shock and pain.

It only took seconds for the sedative to take effect, dragging him down into the darkness.

~ * ~

It took him a moment to realise where he was when he opened his eyes, flinching as the brightness of the room sent pain lancing through his brain, but eventually it eased enough for him to recognise the medical suite at his local S&G Centre where he'd been having monthly check-ups as well as his physiotherapy sessions for his leg. Speaking of which whatever had happened, and his head was a little bit fuzzy about the details, had left him with a dull ache in his leg and a sharp pain in his head. He could've sworn he'd just been standing by the whiteboard in the squad room contemplating their current theories…

“Back with us, Detective Ryan?”

Turning his head on the pillow it rested upon he found Dr Groves, the chief doctor at the centre, checking on an IV which he hadn't noticed was attached to his hand. Beside him stood Solomon, his case worker, who looked even sterner than usual and Beckett.

There was no sign of Javier or Castl…

“Ok, I've got one caramel macchiato for you,” Castle announced as he breezed into the room with a tray full of coffee cups, coming up short as he noticed Kevin was awake. “Hey! Welcome back! You've got a particularly hard head, my friend, although might I suggest not making a habit of this as there's only so many times I can handle the emotions of a feral…”

“Castle,” Beckett interrupted her fiancé, prompting the talkative Guides mouth to shut with an audible click. His hands were trembling as he put the tray of cups down. “Not now.”

“…what's going on?” he enquired softly, bringing a hand up to explore his forehead where the worst of the pain seemed to be coming from despite the fuzz of the painkillers in his system. His fingers found the edge of a hospital dressing, the adhesive already beginning to peel away from his skin. Beckett visibly worried her lower lip between her teeth while the furrow between Castles brows deepened. Wait, someone was missing... “Where's Javi?”

“How about you begin by telling us what you remember, Detective Ryan?”

Dr Groves sounded completely professional, his voice perfectly controlled. Satisfied with the state of his IV the medical professional moved to the foot of the bed to collect Kevin’s chart.

“I was…I was trying to figure out a connection in our current case,” he answered hesitantly, frowning as he struggled to recall the last thing he remembered. Inhaling deeply the scent of the various coffees sitting there waiting to be drunk triggered the next portion of his memory. “I wasn’t getting anywhere so I thought I'd make myself a coffee…I was heading to the break room when my legs started to feel weird…and then my arms…and then there was this ringing noise just before everything started going black…and then I woke up here…”

“It doesn't look like there's any lasting damage from your head injury, at least,” Dr Groves murmured, retrieving a pen from his breast pocket and making a quick note on his chart. “Do you have any idea what might have caused you to fall unconscious the way you did?”

Judging by the looks he was receiving from all four of them they had a good idea about what had caused it even if he didn't, or rather even if he claimed not to know the likely cause…

“I've been feeling a bit run down lately,” he admitted softly. “And I skipped breakfast…”

“Yes, an incomplete Bond would leave you feeling more than a little but run down,” Solomon agreed sharply. Kevin winced. “How long has this been going on?”

“Look, I don't know why everyone thinks that I'm suffering from an incomplete Bond because I haven't – ”

“We don't _think_ you're suffering from an incomplete Bond, Detective Ryan, we _know_ ,” Dr Groves announced gravely, turning his file around so that he could see what appeared to be a collection of test results. “The routine tests we performed on you when you were brought in have confirmed this fact. The reason you've been _feeling a bit run down_ is due to the fact that you haven't allowed the Bond to form completely between you and your Sentinel…”

“I don't _have_ a Sentinel!”

“The results don't lie, Detective,” Dr Groves countered firmly. “Now, we have our suspicions regarding the identity of your Sentinel but if you would be so kind as to state their name...”

“Why aren't you listening to me?” Kevin demanded sharply. “I don't have a Sentinel! I haven't entered into any sort of a Bond with a Sentinel! I don't know why you're insisting – ”

“Esposito suffered from a feral episode when you fainted at the precinct,” Beckett interrupted him calmly, her voice as steady as it always was when interrogating a witness or even a suspect. “We had to sedate him to get anywhere near you. Care to take a guess about what the tests they've performed on him are saying, Kev?”

“But we didn't Bond!” he all but screamed, finally losing his temper with them. “We agreed not to! Yeah, we figured out that we could be perfect for each other but we _agreed not to_!”

“Obviously not before some sort of a Bond had begun to form,” Dr Groves surmised sadly. It wasn't the first time he'd had to deal with people denying their Bond although in most cases it hadn't gotten this bad before they came to the Centre for help. Happily Bonded himself he couldn't ever imagine denying his instincts. “How long ago did you make this agreement?”

Kevin sighed.

“It was before the rescue crews got to us…”

Solomon practically exploded,

“You've been keeping this from me for _six months?!_ Do you realise what you've done? You're denying a bond which had already begun to form! Do you have _any_ idea how dangerous that is, not just for you but for your Sentinel? You're lucky you haven't…”

Dr Groves laid a hand on his co-workers arm,

“I think he's got the picture, Sol.”

“What was it about Bonding with Javier, who you've basically just admitted _is_ your Sentinel, that you disliked so much?” his eloquent friend enquired softly, moving away from his own Sentinel and actually going so far as to rest his hand on top of Kevin's. “I can understand if you wanted to wait, you'd only just started coming online after all, but outright refusal?”

“I just…” Kevin sighed, confused by his own reluctance to announce his reasoning. Up until now he hadn't had any doubts about his decision. And yet… “I couldn't do that to Jenny…”

“And that's exactly what I thought you'd say…”

Dr Groves sighed deeply.

“Detective Ryan, I’m afraid there are only two options left open to you,” he announced, his tone deadly serious as he held Kevin’s gaze. “Either you need to accept your circumstances and complete the Bond with your Sentinel or you can continue to deny them and break the Bond entirely. However you should know that breaking a Bond can result in permanent mental damage or even death in extreme cases, not only for yourself but for your Sentinel.”

“Javi…Javi never said anything about it hurting him…”

“I imagine he was more concerned with making sure you were happy,” Beckett sighed sadly, reaching out to pat his hand as it shifted nervously on top of his bedsheets. “I know I’d do anything to make sure my Guide was safe and happy, even if it meant I was sad or in pain.”

“Not that I’d ever expect such a thing,” Castle interjected. “The well-being of my Sentinel is paramount to my happiness. If she’s not happy, I’m not happy. We’re a packaged deal.”

_The well-being of my Sentinel is paramount to my happiness…_

As far as moments of realisation went the one brought on by Castle’s heartfelt words was somewhat predictable, Kevin’s mind supplying two very different scenarios and comparing them. In one he kept going as he was in order to make Jenny happy. In the other he followed his instincts and, dare he say it, his heart in order to make Javier safe and happy.

Only one of them made his stomach clench.

Apparently his subconscious had already made up his mind for him.

Javier.

“I'll do it. I'll Bond with him,” he announced firmly. “Where…where is he?”

Castle smirked.

Beckett smiled.

Solomon sighed, rolling his eyes.

And Dr Groves nodded in approval.

None of these responses answered his question so he asked again.

_“Where's my Sentinel?”_

~ * ~

He was dreaming.

He _had_ to be dreaming.

There was no way his Guide was curled up against his side in the bed he found himself in, one hand curled up under his head, the other clutching tightly at the front of Javier’s shirt.

“I’m sorry…”

“…what?” he gasped, reaching out to touch the face hovering so close to his own. His eyes flickered to the medical bracelet around his wrist just before his fingertips came into contact with the rough stubble on his Guide’s cheek. “Kevin? W-What do you have to be sorry for?”

“I've been denying our Bond. I caused this…”

“…our Bond?”

It wasn’t really a question even though it sounded like one.

He just couldn’t believe what Kevin was saying.

“You're my Sentinel, Javi…”

Warmth flared within his chest upon hearing the words he’d been longing to hear.

“Kev…”

Tears welled up in the beautiful blue eyes which had captured his soul.

“I'm sorry…”

“Don't apologise for being my Guide, Kev.”

“I'm not,” Kevin promised quickly, leaning up and resting both of his hands on Javier’s chest. “I'm apologising for hurting you. I thought if I ignored the way I felt towards you it would go away but apparently Sentinel/Guide instincts are more stubborn than I thought…”

Javier smiled sadly, moving one of his own hands to cup Kevin’s strong jawline.

“Don’t apologise,” he ordered softly, stroking his thumb back and forth across Kevin’s cheekbone. “I should be the one apologising. I thought we were going to die, that’s why I allowed my senses to begin imprinting on you. But then we survived and…Jenny…”

Kevin winced.

“I don't want to hurt Jenny but…but I can't live without you, Javi…I won't…”

There was only one way he could think of to respond to that.

_“Guide…”_

Leaning forwards ever slowly he gently pressed their lips together, smiling as Kevin instantly responded, their hands shifting to firm more suitable places to clutch hold of each other.

_“Sentinel…”_

**~ THE END ~**

**A/N:** I had originally intended to include to confrontation between Kevin and Jenny following their Bonding but it left too many unanswered questions for me to answer within the word limit so maybe one day I’ll write a sequel but for now this is where the story ends.


End file.
